Our faculty and performing artists are world-renowned musicians on the faculties of institutions such as Juilliard, the Paris Conservatory and the San Francisco Conservatory. They are experts in historic performance techniques and have decades of experience in Classical and Romantic chamber music. Meet them this summer at our concert receptions on the patio.

Canadian violinist Liana Bérubé’s love of performance began at the ripe old age of six and has since taken her around the world. She has performed in many of the world’s greatest concert halls, and her performances have been broadcast on CBC radio in Canada, NPO Radio 4 in the Netherlands, NPR, and VH1. A highly-sought after recording artist, Liana has appeared on dozens of albums and soundtracks, including two GRAMMY-nominated albums.

As a founding member of the award-winning Delphi Trio, Liana concertizes around the USA and abroad; recent tours have included the Netherlands, California, Oregon, Georgia, West Virginia, Illinois, Washington DC, and Missouri. Liana is enthusiastic about all kinds of music and performs in many capacities, from chamber music with her trio, to orchestral leadership in the San Jose Chamber Orchestra and the Oakland Symphony, to performances in a multitude of non-classical genres as concertmaster of the Magik*Magik Orchestra in San Francisco. She has appeared as concerto soloist with Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra, Oakland Symphony, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, Bear Valley Festival Orchestra, and Sinfonia Toronto, and coaches as part of the chamber music faculty at the Crowden School in Berkeley, CA. Liana is an alumna of the University of Toronto and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Widely admired as a Baroque violinist of expressive eloquence and technical sparkle, Elizabeth Blumenstock is a long-time concertmaster, soloist, and leader with the Bay Area's American Bach Soloists and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and is concertmaster of the International Handel Festival in Goettingen, Germany.

In Southern California, Ms. Blumenstock is Music Director of the Corona del Mar Baroque Music Festival. Her love of chamber music has involved her in several accomplished and interesting smaller ensembles including Musica Pacifica, Galax Quartet, Ensemble Mirable, Live Oak Baroque, the Arcadian Academy, and Trio Galanterie. An enthusiastic teacher, Ms. Blumenstock teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the American Bach Soloists summer Festival and Academy, and the International Baroque Institute at Longy. Ms. Blumenstock plays a 1660 Andrea Guarneri violin built in Cremona, Italy, which is on generous loan to her from the Philharmonia Baroque Period Instrument Trust.

Highlights of Ms. Einfeld’s recent engagements include the world premiere of the opera Death with Interruptions by Kurt Rhode; with San Francisco Opera in several roles including the world premiere of Delores Claiborne by Tobias Picker, Gianetta in The Elixir of Love, Papagena in The Magic Flute, Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro; appearances with Vancouver Opera and New Orleans Opera as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro; with West Bay Opera in Die Entführung aus dem Serail as Konstanze; with Syracuse Opera and Green Mountain Opera Festival she has sung the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor; with Opera Lyra Ottawa as Ophelia in Hamlet; Edmonton Opera as Nanetta in Falstaff and as Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance; Canadian Opera Company as Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute; and a number of appearances with Manitoba Opera, including Rosina in The Barber of Seville, Marie in The Daughter of the Regiment, and Norina in Don Pasquale.

A former Adler Fellow and Merola Alumnus with the San Francisco Opera, this Canadian soprano also received acclaim as a Grand Finalist in the 2006 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Her affinity for recital and concert repertoire, including many 20th and 21st century work Premieres, has led to guest appearances with the San Francisco Symphony including the SoundBox Series concerts, Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra New Music Festival, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Left Coast Chamber Orchestra, Montreal Chamber Orchestra, and the Empyrean Ensemble.

Two-time GRAMMY nominee and Avery Fisher career grant recipient Jennifer Frautschi has garnered worldwide acclaim as an adventurous musician with a wide-ranging repertoire. She has appeared as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Teatro di San Carlo Opera House in Naples, and performed at London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, New York’s Lincoln Center, and the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Chamber music appearances include the Boston Chamber Music Society, Caramoor Center, Chamber Music Northwest, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Music @Menlo, Ojai Festival, and the La Jolla, Moab, Seattle, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festivals.

Her extensive discography includes several discs for Naxos: the Stravinsky Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, conducted by the legendary Robert Craft, and two GRAMMY-nominated recordings with the Fred Sherry Quartet, of Schoenberg's Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra and the Schoenberg Third String Quartet. Her most recent releases are with pianist John Blacklow on Albany Records: the first devoted to the three sonatas of Robert Schumann, including the rarely performed posthumous sonata (released in 2014); the second, American Duos, an exploration of recent additions to the violin and piano repertoire by contemporary American composers Barbara White, Steven Mackey, Elena Ruehr, Dan Coleman, and Stephen Hartke (released in 2015). She also recorded three widely-praised CDs for Artek: an orchestral recording of the Prokofiev concerti with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony; the violin music of Ravel and Stravinsky; and 20th century works for solo violin. Other recent recordings include a disc of Romantic Horn Trios, with hornist Eric Ruske and pianist Stephen Prutsman, and the Stravinsky Duo Concertant with pianist Jeremy Denk.

Born in Pasadena, California, Ms. Frautschi was a student of Robert Lipsett at the Colburn School. She also attended Harvard, the New England Conservatory, and the Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert Mann. She performs on a 1722 Antonio Stradivarius violin known as the "ex-Cadiz." She currently teaches in the graduate program at Stony Brook University in New York.

Cynthia Miller Freivogel is the leader and concertmaster of the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado and of the ARTEK chamber orchestra (New York). She has been a leader and concertmaster for Handel and Haydn Society (Boston), Concerto Köln, Concerto d'Amsterdam and Joshua Rifkin's Bach Ensemble at the Stockholm and Antwerp Early Music Festivals, as well as in the Hague with Collegium Musicum den Haag and Musica Poetica. She recently appeared as a soloist (Sinfonia Concertante) at the Festival of Mozart in den Haag and with Philharmonia Baroque (Beethoven Triple Concerto).

As a chamber musician, Ms. Freivogel was a founding member of the Novello Quartet and the Coriolan Quartet, both of which were dedicated to the performance of the string quartets of Haydn and his contemporaries on period instruments. She was also a core member of Brandywine Baroque in Wilmington, Delaware, where she made several recordings, including Corelli Op. 5, on the Plectra label. Since relocating to the Netherlands, she has founded the Hopkinson trio which explores repertoire from the 17th century through the early classical era.

As a solo artist, she has been heard playing Biber at the Berkeley Early Music Festival and the Vilsmayr Partitas at the Utrecht Fabulous Fringe. In the last year Ms Freivogel was featured playing solo Bach at the Seizoen Oude Muziek Bach Days and at Bach-Sommer Arnstadt. She has enjoyed collaborating both with visual artists and dancers, most recently performing early music with newly choreographed works by Garrett Ammon of Wonderbound in Denver, Colorado. She has played in the section with chamber orchestras from the west coast to the east coast and now in Europe, including with Holland Baroque Society, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, Apollo's Fire, Portland Baroque, Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Early Music Festival Opera and she was a tenured member of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.

Before completely dedicating herself to early music, Ms Freivogel played in many symphony orchestras including State Orchestra of Sao Paulo in Brazil, New World Symphony (Miami), Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Colorado Music Festival Orchestra in Boulder, as well as at Tanglewood, San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, American Russian Young Artist’s Orchestra, and new music with Left Coast Ensemble. Ms. Freivogel received a BA in musicology at Yale University and an MM in violin performance at the San Francisco Conservatory. She studied principally with Camilla Wicks and Marylou Speaker Churchill, and is a dedicated and certified Suzuki teacher now at the Muziekschool in Heemskerk. She lives in Amsterdam with her husband, Ben - a theoretical physicist at the University of Amsterdam - and son, Eliot.

For the past thirty years, Eric Hoeprich has specialized in performing on historical clarinets, in music from the Baroque to the late Romantic. Educated at Harvard University and the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, he is currently on the faculties of the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, and Indiana University, Bloomington.

A founding member of Frans Brüggen’s Orchestra of the 18th Century (1982), Hoeprich has performed frequently as a soloist with this orchestra, as well as most of the major early music ensembles and many modern orchestras. In the 1980s, he founded two wind ensembles, Nachtmusique and the Stadler Trio (three basset horns), which have toured around the world. His dozens of recordings are available on labels such as Deutsche Grammaphon, Philips, EMI, SONY, Harmonia Mundi, Glossa and Decca. Collaboration with string quartets, chamber ensembles and vocal soloists also feature regularly on his calendar. The recent release of clarinet quintets (Mozart and Brahms) with the London Haydn Quartet (Glossa), the three clarinet concertos by Bernhard Crusell with Kölner Akademie (ARS Production) and “Sei Sinfonia” by J.C. Bach with Nachtmusique (Glossa) have received wide critical acclaim.

An interest in historical clarinets has led to the publication of numerous articles, contributions to the New Grove Dictionary and a general text on the clarinet published by Yale University Press (The Clarinet, 2008). He recently prepared the entry for “Clarinet” in the Oxford Bibliographies Online. Hoeprich has amassed a collection of more than a hundred antique clarinets, which has also led to restoration and construction of replicas of period originals; he maintains a workshop for instrument making at his home near London.

MONICA HUGGETT

In her 4-decades long career as a violinst, Monica Huggett co-founded the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra with Ton Koopman and founded her own London-based ensemble Sonnerie.

She has worked with Christopher Hogwood at the Academy of Ancient Music, with Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert, and toured the United States in concert with James Galway. She has served as guest director of the Seville Baroque Orchestra, the Kristiansand Symphony Norway, Arion Baroque Orchestra in Montreal, Tafelmusik in Toronto, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque, the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and Concerto Copenhagen. She is currently the first artistic director of the Juilliard School’s Historical Performance Program. Alongside her work at Juilliard Monica continues as artistic director of both the Irish Baroque Orchestra, and the Portland (Oregon) Baroque Orchestra. She also performs frequently as a solo violinist all over the world.

Praised for his "glowing sound”, “assured virtuosity" (San Francisco Classical Voice) and “dazzling pianism” (Sarasota Herald Tribune) Jeffrey LaDeur enjoys a busy career as soloist, chamber musician, and educator. LaDeur’s spontaneity, tone color, and sense of architecture, have distinguished him as an artist of international caliber. Engagements at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Shanghai Conservatory, Eastman Theater, Banff Centre, and other prestigious venues were followed by an invitation from the Naumburg Foundation to make his Carnegie Hall debut. LaDeur is pianist and founding member of the acclaimed Delphi Trio, and Founder and Artistic Director of New Piano Collective, an artistic alliance between pianists of international renown.

As soloist with orchestra, Jeffrey maintains a repertoire of over forty concerti. Recent performances include appearances with the Oakland Symphony, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, the Denver Philharmonic, Merced Symphony, and members of the South Dakota Symphony. LaDeur is frequently heard in recital at venues such as PianoForte Chicago, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Dakota Sky International Piano Festival, and he returns to Carnegie’s Weill Hall to culminate his survey of Debussy’s solo piano music, its influences and inspirations, on the anniversary of the composer’s death in March, 2018. Jeffrey’s debut album featuring works by Rameau and Debussy, will be released on the MSR Classics in summer of 2017.

After an auspicious debut with the Eastman Philharmonia in César Franck's Variations Symphoniques during his first semester of study at the Eastman School of Music, Jeffrey completed his B.M. in piano performance, studying with Douglas Humpherys. LaDeur earned his M.M. in chamber music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music studying with Yoshikazu Nagai and completed additional studies with Robert McDonald. Jeffrey received his formative musical training from Mark Edwards and Annie Sherter, a student of Vlado Perlemuter and Alfred Cortot.

Carla Moore is one of America’s foremost Baroque violinists acclaimed for her stylish and virtuosic playing. A First Prize winner of the Erwin Bodky Competition for Early Music, she is co-concertmaster of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, of which she has been a member for over twenty years. She is also concertmaster of Portland Baroque Orchestra and a founder and co-director of Archetti Baroque String Ensemble, a conductor-less Baroque string band, which recently released its first CD on the Centaur label.

Carla has served as concertmaster and performed as soloist with Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Musica Angelica, Baroque Orchestra of Colorado and American Bach Soloists. As a chamber musician, she has recorded seven critically acclaimed CDs with the ensemble Music’s Re-creation and three with Voices of Music, including her own interpretation of violin sonatas by J. S. Bach. Her videos with Voices of Music have been viewed by millions worldwide on YouTube.

Residing in Oakland, California, Carla teaches baroque violin and viola at the University of California, Berkeley and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Carla received her undergraduate training from the University of Southern California and earned a Master’s of Music with Distinction from Indiana University’s Early Music Institute where she studied with Stanley Ritchie.

Holly Piccoli has established herself internationally as a modern and baroque violinist. Newly based in the Bay Area, Holly has worked with the American Bach Soloists and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and frequently returns to New York and Australia for performances.

Holly’s most recent career highlights include performing in Manhattan with Trinity Baroque Orchestra as Concertmaster of orchestra 2 for Bach's 'St Matthew Passion', Australia's Sanguine Estate Music Festival performing chamber music with the extraordinary violinist Anthony Marwood and former leader of the famous Brodsky Quartet- Andrew Haveron, her solo recital at Italy’s Bari International Music Festival, Melbourne Piano Trio's extensive tour throughout China and Mongolia, the Novus NY performance of “Epic Rarities” in Carnegie Hall, and the premier, as concertmaster, for American composer Martin Bresnick’s opera, “My Friend’s Story.”

Holly performs on a 2012 Jay Haide violon à l'ancienne baroque, a copy of the Tommaso Balestrieri style instrument. Holly also performs on a modern violin by Alessandro Di Matteo, made in 2004 in Cremona, Italy. Holly is an alumna of the Australian National Academy of Music and the Yale School of Music.

KYLE STEGALL

Kyle Stegall’s performances around the world have been met with accolade for his “blemish-free production” (Sydney Morning Herald), “lovely tone and ardent expression” (NY Times), as well as his “lively and empathetic delivery” (San Francisco Classical Voice). An artist who communicates equally well on the concert, opera, and recital stages, his performances are characterized by an unfailing attention to style and detail, and a brutally honest approach to communication.

Mr. Stegall’s successful solo debuts in Japan, Australia, Vienna, Italy, Singapore, and Canada as well as on major stages across America have been in collaboration with many of the world’s most celebrated artistic directors including Manfred Honeck, Joseph Flummerfelt, William Christie, Nicholas McGegan, and Jeffrey Thomas, among others.

Heard frequently as evangelist and tenor soloist in the passions and cantatas of J.S. Bach, Mr. Stegall made his Lincoln Center debut as the evangelist in the St. John Passion under the direction of The Bach Collegium Japan’s artistic director, Masaaki Suzuki.

Holding a special relationship with the music of Benjamin Britten, Mr. Stegall was twice invited to participate as a fellow in the Aldeburgh Music Festival, in the composer’s hometown of Suffolk, England. There he performed in recital and studied Britten song and Schubert lieder under the guidance of Ian Bostridge and Malcolm Martineau. Kyle has been heard in recital singing all of the composer’s cycles for tenor.

A dedicated proponent of the song recital, as well as being a frequent guest artists on recital series, Mr. Stegall personally curates and produces recitals each season which reveal the vast colors and emotional range the collected repertoire has to offer.

Praised for possessing an “ability to absorb viewers into the action, something which is rarely achieved in opera,” (SF Classical Voice) has made him a popular choice for the leading lyric tenor roles in the works of Mozart as well as in operas of the Bel Canto era. This August he will interpret the role of “Emdimione” in West Edge Opera’s The Chastity Tree.

Artistic Director and Co-Founder of the Valley of the Moon Music Festival, cellist Tanya Tomkins is equally at home on Baroque and modern instruments. She has performed on many chamber music series to critical acclaim, including the Frick Collection, “Great Performances” at Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y, San Francisco Performances, and the Concertgebouw Kleine Zaal.

She is renowned in particular for her interpretation of the Bach Cello Suites, having recorded them for the Avie label and performed them many times at venues such as New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, Seattle Early Music Guild, Vancouver Early Music Society, and The Library of Congress.

Tanya is one of the principal cellists in San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Portland Baroque Orchestra. She is also a member of several groups including Voices of Music and the Benvenue Fortepiano Trio (with Monica Huggett and Eric Zivian). On modern cello, she is a long-time participant at the Moab Music Festival in Utah, Music in the Vineyards in Napa, and a member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. As an educator, Tanya has given master classes at Yale, Juilliard, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and runs the Benvenue House Concert Series in Berkeley.

Music Director and Co-Founder of the Valley of the Moon Music Festival, Eric Zivian was born in Michigan and grew up in Toronto, Canada, where he attended the Royal Conservatory of Music. He graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he received a Bachelor of Music degree. He went on to receive graduate degrees from the Juilliard School and the Yale School of Music. He studied piano with Gary Graffman and Peter Serkin and composition with Ned Rorem, Jacob Druckman, and Martin Bresnick. He attended the Tanglewood Music Center both as a performer and as a composer.

Mr. Zivian has given solo recitals in Toronto, New York, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay Area. He has performed Mozart and Beethoven concertos with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Santa Rosa Symphony and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. He performed the Schumann Concerto with the Diablo Symphony in Walnut Creek in October 2013.

Since 2000, Mr. Zivian has performed extensively on original instruments, playing fortepiano in the Zivian-Tomkins Duo and the Benvenue Fortepiano Trio. He is also a member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and has performed with the Empyrean Ensemble and Earplay. He is a frequent guest artist on the San Francisco Conservatory's faculty chamber music series. Mr. Zivian's compositions have been performed widely in the United States and in Tokyo, Japan. He was awarded an ASCAP Jacob Druckman Memorial Commission to compose an orchestral work, Three Character Pieces, which was premiered by the Seattle Symphony in March 1998.

Hailed by the Strad Magazine for his "mellow tone and jovial playing", Andrew Gonzalez is a soloist and chamber musician based in New York. He has collaborated with world class artists such as Natalie Dessay, Itzhak Perlman, Gil Shaham, Shmuel Ashkenasi, and Nobuko Imai, among others. Andrew is currently a member of Carnegie Hall's "Ensemble Connect" (formerly known as Ensemble ACJW). He performs frequently at BargeMusic, most recently a solo recital. Andrew performs regularly with Sejong Soloists and the New York Philharmonic. He recently performed Brahms' Songs for Mezzo, Viola and Piano at the Morgan Library recital series with James Levine's assistant Ken Noda and Sarah Mesko, a frequent singer at the Metropolitan opera. Andrew received his Undergraduate and Masters degrees at the Juilliard School under the direction of Heidi Castleman and Michael Tree. During his graduate studies, he took baroque viola lessons with Cynthia Roberts. Andrew looks forward to attending the American Bach Soloists as well as participating at the Heifetz institute as an artist in residence.

Andrew is generously sponsored by the Cremona Foundation.

ANA KIM

2017 Apprentice

Ana Kim first studied Baroque cello in 2010 with Bill Skeen at USC for 3 years, also participating in the USC Baroque ensemble. In 2015, she met Phoebe Carrai and attended Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra. She is now studying in the Historical Performance program with Phoebe Carrai at the Juilliard School. As an avid chamber musician, she has performed at the Larzac, Manchester, and Utah Chamber Music Festivals and has participated in various festivals including American Bach Soloists, Music@ Menlo, Yellow Barn, Verbier Academy, Perlman Music Program and International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove. She has studied with pedagogues János Starker, Lluis Claret, Ralph Kirshbaum, and Laurence Lesser. Recently, she has been teaching at Pacific Union College as Adjunct Faculty.

Ana is generously sponsored byNancy and Tony Lilly.

JENNIFER LEE

2017 Apprentice

A San Francisco native, Jennifer M. Lee is an active collaborative pianist, organist, and educator. During her formative years as keyboardist of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, Indiana University's New Music Ensemble and Bloomington Camerata Orchestra, she cultivated her passion for chamber music and enlarged her scope of keyboard playing on piano, celesta, and synthesizer.

Notable performances in European venues include the Musikverein and Concertgebouw as well as in the United States, such as Noontime Concerts at St. Patrick's Church in San Francisco, Davies Symphony Hall, Thursday Musical Club at Tiburon Baptist Church, and Sherwood Auditorium. She had also performed piano and celesta alongside The Cleveland Orchestra at the Kent/Blossom Music Festival at the Blossom Music Center in Ohio and was a pianist for the Collaborative Artists program at Aspen Music Festival, which included performing with a large percussion ensemble in an arrangement of Stravinsky's L'histoire du Soldat.

Jennifer has received awards such as the Dean’s Scholarship and Artistic Excellence Award from Indiana University, and was a prize winner of the Fremont Symphony Young Artists Concerto Competition. She holds a Master of Music with an emphasis in chamber music at Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music and a Bachelor of Music from Rice University, Shepherd School of Music. She currently serves as the organist of Hope Lutheran Church, enjoys a thriving private teaching studio, and pursues diverse musical horizons and chamber music collaborations.

Jennifer is generously sponsoredby TANK.

MARIA ROMERO

2017 Apprentice

Maria Jose Romero is a violinist and pedagogue passionate about the historical performance practice of all eras. As a baroque violinist, she has recently performed with International Chamber Players and Fantasmi Baroque Ensemble in Vietnam, Orchester Wiener Akademie in Austria, Princeton Baroque Festival Orchestra, Mountainside Baroque, New Vintage Baroque, Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, and the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project.

Maria has been a featured soloist of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra as winner of their Concerto Competition. A recipient of the EMA Summer Workshop Scholarship, she has participated in the Baroque Performance Institute at Oberlin and the inaugural American Bach Soloists summer institute. She was also selected to participate in the first Early Music America Festival Ensemble at the Young Performers Festival in Boston in 2011 as celebration of EMA’s 25th Anniversary. Maria has served as Concertina for the University of North Texas Baroque and Symphony Orchestras and the Indiana University Baroque Orchestra.

On the modern violin, she has has appeared in venues such as the Isaac Stern Hall in Carnegie Hall with the Sphinx Virtuosi, and has attended the Aspen Music Festival, Brevard Music Center, Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, Manchester Music Festival, and the National Symphony Orchestra Summer Institute. As her mentors and inspiration, Maria has had the fortune to have Cynthia Roberts and Stanley Ritchie in her path to specializing in period performance, Julia Bushkova and Kevork Mardirossian on the modern violin, and Mimi Zweig in her pedagogical training.

Maria’s other interests include promoting social empowerment through high quality music education. She is currently Development Director for the MusAid nonprofit organization, which brings teacher training and instrument repair workshops to developing music schools in at-risk communities around the world. Born and raised in Valencia, Venezuela, Maria is a graduate of the El Sistema program. She now lives in Bloomington, Indiana where she is finishing a Doctor of Music degree in Violin at Indiana University and teaches at the Indiana University Pre-College String Academy.

Maria is generously sponsored bythe Cremona Foundation.

RACHELL WONG

2017 Apprentice

Originally from Washington state, versatile violinist and baroque violinist Rachell Wong has soloed with orchestras across the US and abroad. Recent concerts include a tour of New Zealand with the New Zealand String Quartet, a tour of Alexander Ekman’s ballet Cacti with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and recitals with world renowned pianist Anton Nel in Austin, Texas, and pianist Byron Schenkman in Seattle, WA. She was the Grand Prize winner in the 52nd Sorantin International Young Artist Competition, a prizewinner at the 2014 Heida Hermanns International Music Competition, and Grand Prize winner at the 2013 International Crescendo Music Awards. Recent music festivals include the Ashkenasi/Kirshbaum Chamber Seminar at the Heifetz International Music Institute in Staunton, Virginia, the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer and Winter Institutes in Toronto, the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig, the Sarasota Music Festival, the London Masterclasses at the Royal Academy of Music, the Starling-Delay Violin Symposium at the Juilliard School, and the New Mexico Chamber Music Festival. She regularly performs with Heifetz on Tour, a performing group and residency school program part of the Heifetz International Music Institute.

Rachell is a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship at The Juilliard School, and will be starting a masters degree in the fall as part of the Historical Performance program. Rachell received a MM in 2015 from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, in the studios of Mark Kaplan and Stanley Ritchie. She received her Bachelor of Music in 2013 in violin performance from the University of Texas at Austin, with violinist Brian Lewis. She is currently living in New York, NY. Rachell in her free time loves playing the Scottish fiddle.